Maryland Club Coffee Free Sample-circa 1960s

This item comes from a very unique time in the history of the American coffee culture.
The "1.55 oz." sample coffee tins were given by the Duncan Coffee Company in Houston, Texas during the Sixties. Coca-Cola Company-Food Division sales representatives would hand these tins to restaurants, hotels, and grocery vendors to assist with distributing to a wider audience. They always included coupons off the brands “in store” 8oz or 12oz bags.
This Maryland Club brand has an amazing history. MemoryLaneVintiques would like to share an interesting article from ORMS by Mills Duncan on November 21, 2024.

History of Duncan coffee Company from Coca Cola documents: (revised)
*In 1917, a man named Herschel M. Duncan arrived at the old Cheek-Neal coffee plant in Houston. It was the plant at which he had been superintendent for a number of years, but now Herschel owned the plant. A coffee bean connoisseur, Duncan blended, roasted and tasted the first batch of his coffee, and instantly he knew he had a winner. So, he bagged it up, loaded it into his model T Ford, and went out to find his first customer. By the end of the day, Herschel Duncan. could report a gross sales revenue of $2.92. Not a lot of money, but to a man with the confidence of a true entrepreneur, it was the green light to success, Herschel Duncan named his small coffee milling-plant Duncan Coffee Company. For the following 4 years, Duncan's coffee blend soared in sales all over the Southern part of Texas. Herschel was later joined in the coffee venture by his brother, Charles in 1921. The brand that the Duncan Coffee Company featured most heavily was called Admiration Coffee. Before long, the Duncan brothers decided to put together a blend of very high-quality coffees for use by restaurants, hotels and railroad dining cars. The blend was special, so whatever name they chose would have to convey the image of quality. Herschel had been to Baltimore quite a few times over the years. And it was there that he found the name for his new blend. There is a club in Baltimore that always represented the ultimate in quality, prestige, and graciousness...the Maryland Club. The Duncans could not have chosen a better image for the new coffee, so in 1928, Maryland Club was introduced to the restaurant trade. It was an immediate success, and Duncan Coffee Company was in the premium-quality, premium-price coffee market. The Duncan Coffee Company, over the next dozen years, experienced such a growth in sales that their production capacity became stretched to its limits. In 1936, Duncan made its first acquisition... the Magnolia Coffee Company of Houston. This purchase created room for expansion, and enough production capacity to take care of the steadily increasing sales. BY 1938, the Duncan brothers' Maryland Club Brand had generated such a demand that the decision was made to enter the retail market with it. But only in Houston. They knew that Maryland Club was a solid success, but they also knew that the institutional market was considerably different than the retail market. So, their first step was more or less a test. Maryland Club Coffee was given some grocery distribution in and around the Houston market only. Well, with that venture, Duncan Coffee Company proved one thing: that there definitely was a retail consumer market for premium coffee.
Within three years, Duncan was once again in the position of having to expand its facilities. So, in 1941, they acquired the Delicious Coffee Company, located in Corpus Christi, Texas. During the WWII years, the Duncans rationed coffee as their part of the war effort. Despite nationwide coffee rationing, Duncan Coffee Company was sufficiently strong in the market. In 1951, the decision was made to enter Maryland Club blend into the retail market. The Duncan's strategy was to distribute Maryland Club in grocery stores on a full scale.
So, on the weekend before Easter 1951, Maryland Club coffee made a spectacular entry into the Dallas-Ft. Worth market. The marketing idea for the introduction of Maryland Club, was an ingenious as well as an exciting one. The introduction was called the "Orchid Promotion" and it went like this: each lady who purchased a can of Maryland Club coffee was to receive an orchid corsage. And what a success it was! Everything went according to plan except for one thing...the orchids never showed up. The housewives were in the stores buying can after can of Maryland Club... and the orchids were wilting in a boat somewhere between Honolulu and the US mainland and nowhere near Dallas-Ft. Worth. But everything worked out just fine because stores gave each woman a "rain check:" and traded it in later for her orchid. The real success of this promotion was the fact that 100% distribution was secured overnight.... and virtually all of that distribution was maintained. The "Orchid Promotion" was used to expand distribution into West and South Texas, as well as Arkansas. And, within two years of the Dallas market Easter entry in 1951, Maryland Club had distribution throughout the entire Duncan marketing area. Not only that, but sales...in these same three years from '51 to '53... had increased more than 500%. In 1953 two things happened which did nothing more than add fuel to fire. Maryland Club Instant Coffee was added to the line, to begin with, then, Duncan divided the sales of institutional and grocery products into two specialized sales forces. By 1956, both Admiration and Maryland Club were each selling more than 17 million pounds of premium coffee a year.
In 1957, original founder Herschel Duncan saw his pride and joy...Maryland Club Coffee... become his top-selling premium brand of coffee above all other Duncan Coffee Company blends. Sadly, that was also the year Herschel Duncan died at the age of 88. Following his death, the Duncan Coffee Company was sold to a West Coast coffee importing firm called Otis McAllister & Company. But two years later in 1959, the second generation of Duncans (Charles Duncan, Jr., and John H. Duncan) bought it back again. They immediately began a program of growth. Including the acquisition of Dixie Club Coffee, Inc. of Birmingham, Alabama. In 1961, Duncan Coffee Company acquired the much larger corporation Butter-Nut Food. That same year, the Fleetwood Coffee Company was acquired, which incidentally was one of the original ten companies to make up Tenco. That's also the year that Duncan moved into a brand new 3-million-dollar plant in the Houston metropolitan area. The following year saw the acquisition of two additional companies: The Huggins- Young Coffee Company, and the J. B. Osgood Coffee Company. These were both primarily foodservice companies that went along with the institutional markets of both Duncan and Butter-Nut brands. In 1963, Duncan Coffee Company changed its name to the Duncan Foods Company. Now we come to this very Maryland Club sampler tin you see in the photos. The legacy of a man who on a morning in 1921 drove around Houston, Tx in a Model T Ford selling his blend of coffee to make $2.92 was about to make his family mark into American brand name history. On May 8, 1964, Duncan Coffee merged with the Coca-Cola Company, and Charles Duncan joined Coke's Board of Directors. He ran the newly formed Coca-Cola Foods Division, which included the coffee and citrus (Minute Maid) divisions of Coke. With the merger, Coke continued the Maryland Club sampler initiatives with the help of Charles Duncan's marketing expertise. After all, it was one of the marketing strategies that helped Herschel and the Duncan family's blend to expand in Texas. When Charles headed Coke's Food Division, he insisted that every food product bearing the Coca-Cola trademark name should have a "sampler" line made...with coupons inside:) As far as Duncan's pride and joy Maryland Club blend it is still sold today under the Texas-coffee brand name Bright & Early. Bright & Early Coffee has several blends and flavors and is sold on Amazon.

Tin is sealed with coffee inside and has never been opened. The Scotch tape dispenser in photo shows the scale of the tin by comparison and is not included with the purchase of tin.
Tin weighs 2.5 ounces and measures 2.25" tall and 2" wide. Great shape (see photos)

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STANDS IN PHOTOS NOT INCLUDED WITH PURCHASE OF THIS ITEM!

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